HAMILTON, ONTARIO, March 25, 2008 (Water Tech) — Use POU devices, city tells residents
LAS VEGAS, March 26, 2008 (Water Tech) — Public concern rises after AP report, WQA poll finds
WASHINGTON, March 28, 2008 (Water Tech) — Higher DBP levels when Cl used first, study says
COLUMBIA, MO, April 1, 2008 (Water Tech) — Water tops public’s environmental concerns
Use POU devices, city tells residents
HAMILTON, ONTARIO, March 25, 2008 (Water Tech) — Health officials here are telling families whose homes are serviced by lead pipes to filter their water before drinking, according to a March 24 article in The Hamilton Spectator.
Hamilton health inspectors found that running cold water for 15 minutes to flush lead out of household plumbing did not always bring lead levels below the maximum allowable concentration in drinking water of 0.010 micrograms per liter (or parts per billion).
Health officials have prepared a report for the municipality’s Board of Health that says more must be done to make people aware of the risk of elevated levels of lead in drinking water.
The report also recommends that the city promote its water filter fund, designed to offer $100 to low-income families to buy a point-of-use water filter.
Public concern rises after AP report, WQA poll finds
LAS VEGAS, March 26, 2008 (Water Tech) — Recent news reports about pharmaceuticals in public drinking water have had an impact on the American public, according to survey results released March 25 by the Water Quality Association (WQA) at its annual convention and trade show.
Bottom line: The public became more concerned about drinking water quality in the wake of reports, first published March 9 by the Associated Press about its five-month investigation and quickly carried by many news media, about the presence of pharmaceuticals, said a March 25 WQA press announcement issued here at the WQA Aquatech USA water treatment industry show.
In a survey conducted March 15-18 for WQA by Applied Research-West, Inc., about two-thirds (67 percent) of respondents said they were generally concerned about the quality of their household water supply. That was up from 55 percent who gave that response in a January WQA poll, according to WQA’s March 25 announcement.
Higher DBP levels when Cl used first, study says
WASHINGTON, March 28, 2008 (Water Tech) — A study reporting on the formation of halogenated furanones, also known as disinfection byproducts (DBPs), found that the highest levels of DBPs were produced when disinfection at the drinking water treatment plant began with chlorine or chloramine, according to a March 26 Chemical & Engineering News report.
The study, “Occurrence of Halogenated Furanones in US Drinking Waters,” was published by the American Chemical Society in its Environmental Science & Technology journal (DOI: 10.1021/es071374w). Gretchen D. Onstad of the University of Washington and author study authors reviewed how different water treatment methods, as well as quality of source water, can affect DBP formation.
Water tops public’s environmental concerns
COLUMBIA, MO, April 1, 2008 (Water Tech) — Protecting drinking water and reducing pollution of water sources topped a list of 12 environmental issues that Americans think government should put “a lot more” effort into addressing, a new survey has revealed.
“Protecting community drinking water” and “reducing pollution of the nation’s rivers, lakes and ecosystems” gained more responses favoring “a lot more” government effort, at 40 percent each, than any other environmental issue listed in the survey, “Public Attitudes on the Environment,” conducted by researchers at the Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri, based here.
Almost 70 percent of the 1,000 adults who responded nationally think the government should put “a little bit more” or “a lot more” effort into addressing the two water-related environmental issues, according to the survey.